With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

“American science, long a source
of national power and pride, is increasingly becoming a private
enterprise.

“In Washington, budget cuts have left
the nation’s research complex reeling. Labs are closing. Scientists
are being laid off. Projects are being put on the shelf, especially
in the risky, freewheeling realm of basic research. Yet from Silicon
Valley to Wall Street, science philanthropy is hot, as many of the
richest Americans seek to reinvent themselves as patrons of social
progress through science research.

“The result is a new calculus of
influence and priorities that the scientific community views with a
mix of gratitude and trepidation.”

The trend has implications for
California's $3 billion stem cell agency, which will run out of cash
for new awards in 2017. It is currently engaged in what it calls a
“sustainability” effort, which simply means it is searching for
ways to raise more money. One possibility is another state bond
measure, which would require voter approval and an expensive ballot
campaign. Another more likely prospect is some sort of private
funding arrangement, including creation of a nonprofit organization
to accept donations from the very sort of billionaires, plus
businesses, that the Times discussed.

In 2008, Eli and Edythe Broad gave $25 million
to UC San Francisco to help build a stem cell
research center funded by the California stem
cell agency. Then Gov. Schwarzenegger (at left)
attended the groundbreaking. Broad stands with
his wife. Former CIRM Chairman Robert Klein
is in the background with a gray tie.
UCSF photo

The list in the Times is relatively
long and includes Bill Gates of Microsoft, Eric Schmidt of Google and
Larry Ellison of Oracle. Also mentioned was Eli Broad, who has made
large contributions to stem cell efforts in California. Not
mentioned, oddly enough, was Denny Sanford, who last fall donated
$100 million for stem cell research at UC San Diego.

The Times article said the “personal
setting of priorities is precisely what troubles some in the science
establishment.” Also raising concerns is the enrichment of elite
universities at the expense of poorer ones.

Nonetheless, reporter Broad wrote that the
influence of billionaire donors is likely to grow given their wealth
and the national budget wars. One study cited in his piece shows
that at the 50 leading science research universities, private
donors already account for roughly 30 percent of the schools' research money.

One of the priorities of the private
donors is translational research, the type currently being emphasized
by California's stem cell agency, which some fear could lead to the
neglect of basic research. The Times cited an effort begun in 2000 by
the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The Broad story said,

“With great skill, it used the money
to establish partnerships across industry and academia, smashing
through the walls that typically form around research teams. By early
2012, the financial surge produced the first treatment for
an underlying cause of cystic fibrosis.”

The timeline on that treatment is not
too different than what might be considered the timeline set in Prop. 71, which created the California stem cell agency. The ballot measure provided for 10 years of funding via money
borrowed by the state. Although the measure was passed in 2004, legal
battles delayed issuance of the bonds, meaning that the agency's
financial clock has not yet completely run out. As for commercial
cures built on agency research, no one at the agency is publicly
predicting their entry into the market place within the next three
years.

3 comments:

It has become a very odd pattern that CIRM meetings are issuing RFA/initiative only for “spending in projects that agency is already funding”, most of those projects are conflict of interest or directors’ own interest, not already fit the legal statute of Prop 71. It raises some big questions, how many CIRM directors are actively pursuing their own interests behind the close door? What they have to hide from the public? For examples, CIRM 5 year-old leadership awards are Sanford Burnham & UC interests, most of CIRM awardees have not done any stem cell research to lead, just easy cash for them. Coriell, cellular dynamics, CIRM disease teams and industry partnership are Sanford Burnham (life Tech & Greg Lucier), Mahendra Rao (Life Tech), UC, Stanford interests. Ellen Feigal actually held close door meetings only to help their hand-picked disease teams and industry partnership before the agency even made any announcements. We know by now which director’s interest is already funded by the agency, not any interest of the public or Prop71. In most government agencies, it’d be considered as corruption, how they got away from it?

David: Thanks for the positive take on the crowdsourcing that revealed flaws in the STAP papers. The hype about the method being easy was like catnip to the scientific community, and the sharing of information saved a great deal of precious time and even more precious research funding by revealing that the method was, in fact, not easy at all.

I need to bring up a minor point that isn't trivial. I know that it's simple shorthand to describe Denny Sanford's gift for stem cell translation as being donated to UC San Diego. But Denny himself would correct you and say that while UCSD is managing the distribution of the funds, the donation was to the consortium of institutions in La Jolla: UCSD, Sanford/Burnham Institute, the Scripps Research Institute, the Salk Institute, and La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology.

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.